Licensed to Thrill: Volume 3

by Diane Capri

  The political process seemed like one big bartering game to me. George was the politico in our family, and I was glad to leave it that way. But it occurred to me that any of the senators Andrews talked to the day before he died could have killed him. Who knows what was said between them? Andrews didn’t seem to be able to get along with anyone. Should I add another one-hundred names to my list of potential murderers?

  I pondered this silently while George and Jason attempted to change the subject to the recent coup attempts in Cuba. When, not whether, Cuba would once again be open for American travel is a constant topic of conversation in Florida.

  Tampa’s cigar business, started and continued by Cuban immigrants, was already in full swing by the time Castro came to power. Still, Tampa’s Cuban community has a lot of emotional attachment to Cuba and many say they are planning to return as soon as they’re allowed to do so. At least to visit family and friends, if not to emigrate permanently.

  Most Floridians believe Cuba will again be a tourist Mecca and hot vacation spot some day. The sentimental motive is a strong one, but many Cuban expats and other businessmen just want to be in on the ground floor of what they think will be a money making operation. Key West has been planning for the increased cruise ship trade for years.

  Reopening Cuba is a hot political topic, too. Senator Warwick and Jason were both very involved in lobbying for change. Jason and George could argue the merits of this issue for hours. But I wasn’t as interested in Cuba as I was in General Andrews.

  When I could get a word in, I asked them what else they’d been discussing when I walked into dinner. The way they looked at each other, I could tell I wasn’t supposed to have overheard this bit of information, which, of course, made it more interesting to me.

  “It’s not something I can discuss, Willa. Strictly cone-of-silence stuff,” Jason said.

  I didn’t buy that for a minute. “You were discussing it with George. If it’s so secret, why does George know about it?”

  George looked up desperately for our waiter and flagged him over. We all ordered dessert and coffee.

  I refused to be distracted. “Look. I’m not going to drop this. If you don’t tell me about it now, I’ll call Sheldon Warwick myself in the morning and ask him.”

  George was the one who responded. He said quietly, but with more firmness than I usually accept from him, “Just leave it alone. Please. Let’s have our coffee in peace.”

  The more they wanted to keep the information from me, the more I felt it was important to my investigation. Which, of course, neither of them knew a thing about. “I’m not going to make a scene. But I am going to find out what’s going on here. After we have our coffee we can go upstairs and talk about it. Or I’ll find out some other way. You two can decide while I go powder my nose.”

  When I got back to the table, our key lime pie had been served. Café con leche for me and the wimpier decaffeinated Colombian for the men. We ate and drank in relative camaraderie, finishing our after dinner liqueur.

  When we’d finished, I resumed my crusade. “Well,” I said, “What’s it to be? The word straight from you two tonight, or I start calling Senate Judiciary Committee members tomorrow?” I rose up to leave the table. As I’d expected, they followed me out of the dining room and up to the flat.

  When we got settled in our den, neither one of them had broached the subject, so I prodded them again. One last time. “What were you two talking about at the dinner table before I came in tonight?”

  Jason fielded my questions. The choice was curious. Jason had more of a professional obligation to keep his secrets than George did because Jason was a senate employee, aide to Warwick and on the Democrats’ side. “You know the confirmation hearings weren’t going well, right?”

  “Well for whom, is the relevant question,” I said.

  Jason ignored my sarcasm. “Senator Warwick was against the Andrews nomination from the start. Like George, Sheldon knew Andrews personally and didn’t think Andy had the judicial temperament necessary for a Supreme Court Judge.”

  George said nothing and I kept silent as well.

  Jason cleared his throat. “Well, Warwick tried to convince President Benson to withdraw the nomination. Warwick knew Andrews was strong willed and opinionated and, even if he had otherwise been qualified, that Andrews could never do the right thing politically to get confirmed.” Jason looked directly at me. “Warwick knew the nomination would be a disaster.”

  “Andrews had been around politics a long time,” George picked up the explanation now. “He’d made a lot of enemies among the people who knew him. No one was looking forward to standing behind the party’s man.”

  Jason fidgeted, rubbing his hands together, as if to warm them, but it was seventy degrees tonight and he had on a tropical weight wool jacket and tie. He wasn’t cold.

  He cleared his throat again. “It was a very real political dilemma for Warwick and all the other Democrats. No one wanted to openly oppose the Presidential choice, but none of them wanted to or could vote for Andrews in good conscience. Warwick, as the chairman of the committee and one of the most senior Democrats on the Hill, was on the spot. The younger guys looked to him to figure out a way to finesse this.”

  George intervened. “And Warwick, for his part, had no intention of losing his seat over this nomination the way Illinois Senator Alan Dixon lost his over the Judge Thomas vote.”

  For the first time, I was confused. “What do you mean? Thomas was confirmed.” My lack of political savvy was a handicap in this maze of relationships and back room dealing.

  Jason stood, put both hands in his pockets, and paced the room. “Thomas was a controversial nominee. Some people were unhappy with the way the hearings went and the way the vote came down. Politicians paid the price with their jobs. No one wanted to be in that position over Andrews. It was a bad spot for all of them.”

  George said. “They felt it was their leader, President Benson, who put them all on the hot seat. Nobody liked it.”

  “And that’s where George came in,” Jason said. “Warwick gave a statement to the press. He said that the committee had been criticized in recent years for being ‘too supine and deferential’ to the President in the Kennedy and Souter nominations. Warwick said that under his stewardship, the Judiciary Committee would take a more active role. He said there was no presumption in favor of confirmation.

  George picked up the tale. “Benson and Andrews were outraged. It was a plain power play. Warwick said, in effect, that he was the reigning Democrat, not the President. And certainly not Andrews.”

  Jason sat down again, making an apology for his boss. “Washington is all about power. Nobody gives you power. You just take it.”

  I was beginning to see the problem. Warwick, the Democratic senior senator from Florida, was taking on the lame duck Democratic President in his second term. The President couldn’t be re-elected, but the Senator could. In recent years, the political types have felt that control of Congress is more important than control of the Presidency. Longer terms of office and lack of term limits was one of the reasons why.

  I’d thought I wanted to know all of this, but my desire was based mainly on their refusal to tell me about it. So far, I found the explanation a big yawn. And I had other things to worry about.

  “This is all very interesting, in a political science kind of way,” I told them both. “But what does any of it have to do with George?”

  George answered this time for himself. “The Republicans never wanted Andrews. We were shocked when he was selected. We wanted to defeat him and Warwick was willing to help us do that. For once, Warwick and I were both on the same side. Jason works for Warwick. We were discussing the issues.” He said it like a Packers fan would be interested in the 1997 Super Bowl game where the Packers won for the first time in over twenty years.

  And I could buy that. The battle over Andrews’s confirmation had been intense, but I hadn’t realized Warwick had put all his political cl
out on the line. If Andrews was confirmed, and Warwick lost this fight, Warwick’s career would be finished. The Democrats would replace him as party leader. He would go out in disgrace.

  So Warwick had a personal stake in defeating Andrews’s confirmation, too. George probably viewed this as a gift of Trojan proportions. George was on the verge of winning a round against the Democrats with the Andrews nomination. And, I could tell by just looking at him, he’d loved it.

  Jason was still focused. George, more savvy in the conversation game, could sense my waning interest and would have let it go. Jason, the lawyer, was honed in on the question. He foolishly brought it up again himself.

  “Benson feared that Warwick’s behind-the-scenes opposition, supported by George’s efforts, was making a difference.” Jason stopped, took a deep breath, and just spit it out. “So, to save face, Benson sent an emissary to each member of the party the Friday night after the committee hearings closed. The evening Andy died. The President’s man said Benson had recently learned that the army had received sexual harassment complaints about Andrews.”

  “What?” I asked.

  He ignored me. “Although the complaints had been fully investigated and were unfounded, neither Andrews nor the President wanted them revealed.”

  “What?” I asked again, feeling shocked and amazed, but titillated just the same.

  Jason continued to ignore me, and finished up. “Andrews couldn’t withdraw, but the senators could vote no on the nomination, with no hard feelings.”

  George added, “In fact, the President said he wished they would vote ‘no,’ to avoid political and personal embarrassment for everyone.”

  I was completely dumfounded now. “He let them all off the hook? Gave up his leverage? Why?”

  This was not politics as I knew it was played in every arena, from the condominium board to the school board to Capitol Hill. George frowned at Jason and Jason, finally noticing how far he’d gone, must have realized that he’d revealed too much.

  “I don’t know why he did it. I’m not his advisor,” Jason snapped.

  George explained, “That’s what we were discussing when you came in. Benson could have withdrawn the nomination when he saw Andrews wasn’t going to be confirmed. But he chose to sabotage Andrews instead. It was a damn sneaky move.”

  And if General Andrews knew about it, the news might have caused him to kill himself. Maybe his death was a highly creative suicide after all, for which George could easily be framed. I could imagine Andrews getting a charge out of making George pay for ruining his appointment. That motive made more sense to me than the one Robbie had cooked up for George.

  But, George would have a motive for murder only if Andrews’s nomination stayed on the table. When Andrews was rejected, George’s motive would disappear.

  If this piece of information got out, George could be off the hook. Things were looking up.

  Besides, I thought, it might have been a political faux pas if Benson’s treachery came to light after the vote, but it could be spun to the President’s favor. Benson could simply have said that he’d received new information about Andrews, information that changed his mind about nominating Andrews. He’d look foolish for not having known about the sexual harassment complaints before he nominated Andrews, but that was an oversight he would be forgiven for, especially since he attempted to correct the problem before Andrews was actually seated on the court.

  Benson had the reputation of a crafty politician. I suspected he’d sent the emissary fully expecting his effort to become public at some point.

  George and Jason began their argument again. I tuned it out, waiting until the feel of the noise suggested that I could tastefully throw Jason out for the night. That point came about twenty minutes later.

  I heard Jason say, “You and I are never going to agree on this, and it’s getting late. I need to go.”

  He was still in a huff, but the result was what I wanted.

  “I’m sorry you have to leave, Jason, but it is getting late,” I said, much to Jason’s surprise and George’s, too, for that matter. I stood up and Jason had no real alternative but to do the same. I ushered him out with a hug and a promise to see him later in the week.

  George would have followed Jason out, but I asked him to wait a while. “I really need to be going, Darling. It’s been a long day,” he said.

  “Just a short night cap first?” I suggested.

  We took our liqueur over to the couch. “You know,” I told him, “maybe Andy found out about Benson’s actions.” George said nothing.

  I watched him through half closed eyelids. “If he found out, he could have been so upset that he killed himself, George. Maybe this really was a suicide.” I suggested it softly. “People are always surprised by a suicide.” I repeated what I’d read in Robbie Andrews’s online column, “And we never want to believe it was inevitable.”

  “I can see why you think that’s possible,” George said, “but I don’t think it happened that way. You know the physical evidence doesn’t support the suicide theory. And so far, no one thinks Andy found out Benson betrayed him.”

  I heard the smile in his voice as he said, “Nice try, though. It would have been an easier answer than having me on trial for murder.” He leaned over and kissed the top of my head. “I need to get going, sweetheart. It’s late, and I need my beauty sleep.” He got up to leave.

  I grabbed his sleeve and got down to business.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  Tampa, Florida

  Friday 11:30 p.m.

  January 28, 2000

  “BEFORE YOU GO, I want us to talk about your gun. The murder weapon. I went out to the gun club, and the box is still in your locker. Why was your gun out if its box? How did it get removed from the club? And who took it?”

  He’d drained his glass and leaned over to kiss me before he stood up again to leave. “Not now, Willa. It’s too late to get into all that.” He glanced quickly at his watch. “I’ve already discussed it with Olivia, anyway. Talk to her about it, or we can go over it later.”

  He leaned toward me and held me for one of those kisses that still take my breath away. When we eventually pulled apart, he said, “Trust me, it’s not the link from the gun club we need to worry about. Goodnight.”

  Resisting the childish urge to stamp my foot in frustration, I locked up and went to bed with quite a lot on my mind for my subconscious to work out.

  Kate swears that your mind solves your problems overnight if you just remember to program the questions before you go to sleep. I sure had a lot of questions to be considered. If I woke up with the answers tomorrow, no one would be happier than I.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  Tampa, Florida

  Saturday 8:30 a.m.

  January 29, 2000

  PERHAPS I HAD SOME fabulous dreams that night, but when I awakened, I couldn’t remember any of them. The sunlight was streaming into the open window, the air quite chilly. I stretched my arms out in either direction, there being no reason to avoid taking up the whole bed since I was the only one in it. Again.

  I let the dogs go out by themselves. The hell with it. I probably wasn’t going to be running any marathons any time soon, anyway. Sometimes resistance sidetracks me just like everyone else. Besides, I wanted my coffee and I wanted it now.

  After a quick shower, I grabbed a to-go cup, picked up my tote bag with my investigative tools in it, and headed down to Greta. Traffic willing, I’d be out to Thonotosassa in less than thirty minutes. We pulled out over Plant Key Bridge and turned east on the Bayshore.

  Multi-tasking, I picked up my cell phone and tackled the Olivia problem. George told me last night that they’d been having meetings and conversations that I didn’t know about. He’d told her about the gun. I was out of the loop and I didn’t like it. I’d never have hired the woman if I’d known she was going to be uncontrollable. I left messages for her at all her offices, her car and her home. That I couldn’t find her made me even more
uneasy. Who knows what she was out there doing that I didn’t know about.

  Greta and I drove along the Bayshore beside the five mile continuous sidewalk, where once there had been a shore line. In a gentler era, where grand waterfront estates once stood, high-rise condominiums now blocked the view. The Tampa Tribune reported that three hundred new luxury condominiums were slated to be built with a Bayshore address. It was this kind of progress that made me happy to live on Plant Key. Owning our little island means we decide what gets built there.

  I passed one of Tampa’s newest high-rise condominiums. I hadn’t been in the building, but the pictures I’d seen in the sales literature made it look like a reasonable abode for super-rich dudes like Donald Trump or Bill Gates.

  Housing was still a relative bargain in most of the areas around Tampa. Retirees come here to live in very nice (and some not so nice) mobile home parks. Young families and empty nesters settled in Brandon and other suburbs where a nice house could still be had for affordable prices.

  But people moving to Tampa from more expensive housing markets, like the northeast or northwest, could apparently afford the newest luxury high-rises or the just as pricey golf communities north of town.

  The traffic puttered along, moving well below the posted forty-mile-per-hour speed limit, and my impatience didn’t hustle them along at all. Avoiding collisions with tourists who were driving erratically, stopping before they entered the expressway, turning left from the far right-hand lane, or doing forty miles an hour in a seventy mile an hour zone, was one of the challenges of the winter season.

  My favorite bumper sticker around here reads: “Someday I’m going to retire, move to Michigan and drive slow.”

  Once I reached the expressway, my attention focused on staying alive through the perpetual road construction. Was there a highway in America that wasn’t being repaired? I-4 had been disrupted by construction for all the years I’d lived in Tampa. Drivers must keep their wits about them to avoid getting killed by out of control eighteen-wheelers and sight-seeing tourists.